A week after his interview with Mr. Randolph, he found himself in South Park a little after eleven at night. He had dined on Rincon Hill, and purposed spending the night at the Oriental Hotel; he rarely returned to the Presidio after an evening’s entertainment.
He had avoided the other men, and started to walk into town. Almost mechanically he turned into South Park, and halted before the tall silent house which seemed such a contemptible barrier between himself and the woman he wanted. His eyes, travelling downward, noted that a basement window had been carelessly left open. He could enter the house without let—and the opportunity availed him nothing. He wished that he were a savage, with the traditions and conventions of a savage, and that the woman he loved dwelt in a tent on the plain.
Lights glimmered here and there in the houses of South Park, but the Randolphs’ was blank; everybody, apparently, was at rest. To stand there and gaze at her window was bootless; and he cursed himself for a sentimental ass.
He walked up the semi-circle and returned. This time he moved suddenly forward, lifting his head. It seemed to him that a sound—an odd sound—came from the bedroom above the parlour, a room he knew to be Mrs. Randolph’s.
At first the sound, owing to the superior masonry of the walls, was muffled; but, gradually, Thorpe’s hearing, naturally acute, and abnormally sensitive at the moment, distinguished the oral evidence of a scuffle, then the half-stifled notes of angry and excited voices. He listened a moment longer. The sounds increased in volume. There was a sudden sharp note, quickly hushed. Thorpe hesitated no longer. If the house of a man whose guest he had been were invaded by thieves, and perhaps murderers, it was clearly his duty to render assistance, apart from more personal reasons.
He took out his pistol, cocked it, then vaulted through the window, and groping his way to a door opened it and found himself in the kitchen entry. A taper burned in a cup of oil; and guided by the feeble light he ran rapidly up the stair.
He opened the door at the head, paused a a moment and listened intently. The house teemed with muffled sounds; but they fell from above, and through closed doors, and from one room. Suddenly the hand that held the pistol fell to his side. The colour dropped from his face, and he drew back. Was he close upon the Randolph skeleton? Had he not better steal out as he had come, refusing to consider what the strange sounds proceeding from the room of that strange woman might mean? There were no signs of burglars anywhere. A taper burned in this hall, likewise, and on the table beside it was a gold card-receiver. There had been a heavy rainfall during the evening, but there was no trace of muddy boots on the red velvet carpet.
Then, as he hesitated, there rang out a shriek, so loud, so piercing, so furious, that Thorpe, animated only by the instinct to give help where help was wanted, dashed down the hall and up the stair three steps at a time. Before he reached the top, there was another shriek, this time abrupt, as if cut short by a man’s hand. He reached Mrs. Randolph’s room and flung open the door. But he did not cross the threshold.